I also finished 999 yesterday. It took me until my sixth attempt to figure out what I needed to do to get the best ending. I should have seen it coming, since considering that the guy behind Ever 17 was behind this game. You can certainly see some of the same themes from E17 in 999, and that is a huge compliment, since Ever 17 has one of the best stories I've ever read. So yeah, I really enjoyed 999 and thought it had a compelling story with compelling characters.

My one problem with the story was

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Ace's heel-face-turn. I'm okay with him being the bad guy, but he was totally maniacal after that was revealed. I just felt like they made him a crazy d-bag just for the sake of making the player dislike the villain. If they would have toned down his personality just a bit more, I wouldn't have minded as much.

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Ace is a complete sociopath, brought on probably by his prospagnosia. He had no empathy whatsoever, he thinks other humans are just mere monkeys - animals. It's this sociopathy that makes him such a mellow and calm character at the start, he is extreamly intelligent and excellent at hiding whatever emotions he is having. When the cat is out of the bag so to speak, we see the monster underneath the calm facade.

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You make some excellent points, and its more of a nitpick than a complaint. Overall, I agree with your assessment, I just felt that the intensity of his sociopathy just made him into a bit more of caricature at times, such as when he was laughing maniacally when he locked Akane in the incinerator. I only bring it up because I felt all the other characters and the overall plot were so well-developed that the less than stellar parts just stand out a bit more.

If you are going to have a villian that's legitimately insane (That look in his eyes when he is peering inside the incinertaed still sends shivers down my spine) it's going to be tough to make it not a bit charicature-ish. Ever17 completely avoided this issue by simply not having a villian. :P

If you are going to have a villian that's legitimately insane (That look in his eyes when he is peering inside the incinertaed still sends shivers down my spine) it's going to be tough to make it not a bit charicature-ish. Ever17 completely avoided this issue by simply not having a villian. :P

I was gonna say the same thing about Ever 17, haha! Great minds do think alike! :P

And I hope I'm not coming off like I'm bashing the game, I did enjoy the crap out of it. I didn't think I'd get a chance to enjoy a story that was like E17 again, but I was proven wrong. And my bf can attest to the number of times I exclaimed either, "This game is sooo good," or "This game is fucking nuts," while playing it.

If you are going to have a villian that's legitimately insane (That look in his eyes when he is peering inside the incinertaed still sends shivers down my spine) it's going to be tough to make it not a bit charicature-ish. Ever17 completely avoided this issue by simply not having a villian. :P

Outside of the older protagonist's hideous luck and monumental stupidity, that is.

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("Here have an emergency submarine. Oh too bad somebody forgot to turn off the dome lights last night, now you get to sink to your watery grave. Of course if only you could get beamed a message from your future son to quit your drowning, rescue the girl, and save the fucking day you wouldn't have to meet your untimely end. Not like that's that big of a deal given how you've already taken a deadly plague and some explosive decompression to the face so what's a goodly kilometer or two of ocean to swim through on a single breath of air?")

Well I guess the AI chick could be perceived as villainous, but even that's kind of a stretch.

I started playing Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones the other day. I'm on Chapter 8, and so far I haven't had too much trouble with the difficulty, although I did choose Normal instead of hard. Anyone who has played FE:SS, would you recommend doing Eirika or Ephraim's routes? Also, are the trainee characters worth raising? I made Ross into a pirate, but I dunno if I wanna do the same for the other two trainees when I get them.

I started playing Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones the other day. I'm on Chapter 8, and so far I haven't had too much trouble with the difficulty, although I did choose Normal instead of hard. Anyone who has played FE:SS, would you recommend doing Eirika or Ephraim's routes? Also, are the trainee characters worth raising? I made Ross into a pirate, but I dunno if I wanna do the same for the other two trainees when I get them.

I liked Amelia better than the other trainees. She can promote into a General eventually, and she has really good speed growth so you'll have a General with high DEF and high SPD as well as good damage. Plus you know, female General.

Fun fact: Amelia was going to have a unique class in the beta build, which is like pre-Pegasus Knight

I started playing Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones the other day. I'm on Chapter 8, and so far I haven't had too much trouble with the difficulty, although I did choose Normal instead of hard. Anyone who has played FE:SS, would you recommend doing Eirika or Ephraim's routes? Also, are the trainee characters worth raising? I made Ross into a pirate, but I dunno if I wanna do the same for the other two trainees when I get them.

I liked Amelia better than the other trainees. She can promote into a General eventually, and she has really good speed growth so you'll have a General with high DEF and high SPD as well as good damage. Plus you know, female General.

Fun fact: Amelia was going to have a unique class in the beta build, which is like pre-Pegasus Knight

The only really notable difference between Eirika's and Ephraim's routes is a couple of maps during the middle portion of the game, of which Ephraim's contains the more difficult maps (fuck that boat). Beyond that you'll still get the same characters at roughly similar levels when they meet up again during the desert stage.

As for the yet unmentioned trainee Ewan, he's kinda terrible to start with but can eventually into your best Druid while Knoll takes the Summoner class. Otherwise he can just be yet another Sage or your best candidate for becoming a Mage Knight.

And one more note about Amelia is that she also receives a unique sprite as a Cavalier.

I had a lot of trouble getting into Jet Set Radio, too. The controls are frustrating and...I guess I don't really know what I'm doing or even what I'm supposed to do?

Same. I actually got used to VOOT's controls, and that game really wasn't designed for the Dreamcast controller at all. With JSR though, I just felt like I was walking through mud the entire time. There were some other issues -- hunting through the maps for spots to tag got tedious, and it was way too easy to fail late in the stages. DON'T think the time limit added anything.

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o/` I do not feel joy o/`o/` I do not dream o/`o/` I only stare at the door and smoke o/`

I'm tempted by this, too. But for $15?! That's rough. I think I can wait for a sale. If Square ever actually HAS sales?

I DLed episodes 3-5 of the Walking Dead. Then played 2 hours worth of Ep. 3. Oh, my god! The choices this go around are so tough. And the things you have to do and go through. Heart wrenching. This game has a better story and characters than most movies I've seen recently. If my wife hadn't come in the room...

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Carley! That bitch shot Carley! This floored me. She was my favorite character, and then BAM, she's gone. And then the whole Duck scenario. I sent Kenny's wife(her name is something weird that I forget) to take care of him, and she shoots herself! Then poor Kenny has to kill his kid. This especially tore me up due to having a son a little older than Duck.